The new sole owners of the Big Day Out (BDO) have confirmed the music festival will not be held next year although they intend to bring it back in the future.

US company C3 Presents, which was yesterday revealed as the new owner of the event, made the announcement today.

It comes after months of speculation over the future of the long-running festival and revelations yesterday from Sydney Showground and Flemington Racecourse executives that festival organisers had cancelled their 2015 venue bookings.

Last week co-owner AJ Maddah sold his stake in the festival, having only just bought his way into BDO last year.

"It's very disappointing for the fans and for us because it's an iconic event," Mr Thorpe said.

"It was the first rock 'n' roll event I went to and the first we held. I was there for 20 years at Paddington and we've been with it here ever since."

Ross Knight played at both the first and last Big Day Outs with his band Cosmic Psychos.

He said he was shattered to the hear the festival was ending.

"It's been going long enough to be something that you can rely on," he said.

"Times change but I can't understand why it's still not a huge success. It's a real shame for kids too because it was a good, safe, well-run festival where you could drop your kids off at the start of the day and pick them up at the end of it."

Helen Marcou, co-founder of Save Live Australia's Music (SLAM), said hundreds of people in the industry would be affected by the decision.

"There's studios and publicists and printing and everything else that comes with it," Ms Marcou said.

"When there's a big player like that that leaves the market, we see less sideshows so our mid-range venues aren't putting on gigs."

"We kind of look at it from an exporting point of view," Mr Dickie said.

"The best part about having the Big Day Out from that perspective was always having a travelling festival, that the international bands would come in, they would meet the local Australian and New Zealand artists and they would form relationships that would then help them potentially get on tours internationally as well."

BDO has been a staple in the Australian music festival scene since 1992 when it debuted in Sydney before expanding to Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth the following year.

Festivals on Queensland's Gold Coast and in Auckland, New Zealand were added in 1994.

Rumours the festival would be scrapped first emerged last year following poor ticket sales and a loss of between $8 million and $15 million.

The Sydney event, normally scheduled for two days, was reduced to just one.